Eventual ZADR-- An Invader Zim fanfic parody
by MrBNatural1
Summary: It is like four years after the series or something and Dib is of course super tall and hunky, but his emotions are so very conflicted! Will he eventually give in and partake in gratuitous sex scenes with his worst enemy? Well, it says so in the title, so probably! Woo!
1. Chapter 1-- Facade

Dib stroad (stroad? Is that a word? Well, he kind of walked confidently) across the Skool playground area. He stroad on long, lanky legs because it is a minimum of three years after the series ended, and he is now in middle school or high school, because that is sexier. Even though Dib was now tall and a total hunk, he still wore the same childhood clothes: a pale-navy-dull-bluish shirt with a perfect circular-like-shape with a a horizontal line about three-fifths down said circular-like-shape. This line was preceded by two plain black dots of equal size and color, and on the whole this shape resembled an unsmiling face, but I am going to be a professional writer some day so I need to describe it in way more detail that just that. As Dib stroad (Microsoft Word says that's not a word but I've seen it before!) down the sidewalk, his jet-black hair, shaped like a great curved scythe, bobbed in the slight breeze on the pleasant light-orange-skied day…

Eight paragraphs of description later, Dib spotted Zim across the grass. It seemed so long ago now that the little Irken had come to Earth… gah, how many fights had it been? And in those fights, especially after the series ended, there had been much character development, the two coming to see each other not as enemies but as respectable opponents, each always able to come back from a defeat and totally pwn (is that a word?) the other. This character development was slow, but so important, you really should have been there.

Oh well. This story is where that all comes to a head, resulting in, and I do not wish to spoil anything, but I will say that the thing that happens rhymes with "schmex".

Anyway, I'm pretty sure that what was happening right now was that Dib saw Zim on the playground. Oh, he really hated that Zim, for now.

"Hey, Zim!" he shouted. "I'm gonna stop your evil plan!"

I forgot to exposit about Zim's evil plan, or how Dib found out about it, but we'll let it slide as I really wanna get to the schmex.

"You'll never defeat me, Earth stink!" Zim shouted. "As you've never defeated me before!"

"I've defeated you so many times! Almost every time, really!"

"You're lying!"

"I am not! I stand opposed to your goals!"

"And I stand opposed to your opposition of my goals!"

"How many more exchanges do you think we need before the audience gets the idea that we currently hate each other?!"

"At least four!"

"Okay! Rrarghh!"

"Aghh!"

"Grrach! You!"

"Curse you!"

"Fuck you!" That's right. I used "fuck" in this story. It's really a raw, uncensored, emotional story.

"Rragh! Filth!" Zim retorted.

"Although I am currently demonstrating my hatred for you, this display mainly serves as a dramatic contrast for when it is revealed that—yes!—I have held deep repressed romantic feelings for you since the day I laid eyes on you, you feisty little bug-man, you!"

"…What?"

Satisfied, Dib turned around and marched home, his lanky lankiness swaying lankily in the gentle breeze. You just can't wait to see him naked, can you?


	2. The most important character in the fic

As Dib continued traveling home, the familiar manhole cover in front of his house suddenly popped up into the air as if propelled by some kind of vertically-running cheetah. The cover flew really really high up, like, eighty hundred feet, and then landed in an adjacent state. Dib knew that brute strength, sheer badassery and nonchalant disregard for the law anywhere.

Ocie slid out of the manhole like a smooth, catlike leopard. She was tall, almost taller than Dib, and she was set with strong, lean muscles. She wore a yellow-green plaid button-up shirt with an impractical jean jacket and tight light blue jeans (the pants kind). She had a dark green fleece jacket tied around her waist, and Dib shook his head as he reminisced about how, despite her being his childhood friend who had been with him the whole time, through thick and thin, and especially in his adventures with Zim, really, he had never seen her actually wear that jacket. She lived in the sewers in front of Dib's house, subsisting on squirrels and alligators she caught with her bare hands because her entire extended family and their attorneys had been cruelly ripped away from her at a young age in a Traumatic Past Event.

Suddenly, Dib tripped sideways as his shoulder injury left from his own Traumatic Past Event (although I may not get to revealing this one; we'll see how it goes) sent a pang of pain through his lanky collarbone.

Ocie was there in a flash, supporting Dib with her alligator-hunting hardened muscles.

"Wow, Dib, you better stop growing and getting so tall and lanky, or you'll fall over a lot more like that," Ocie quipped cleverly.

"Good thing I'll always have you around," Dib said, establishing the close bond these two shared.

Ocie ran her fingers through her pixie-cut hair, half of which was dyed powdery pink and the other half leopard yellow. Living in the sewers meant that she occasionally got some dirt in her hair, but other than that she was totally clean. She wore a dark purple beanie which pressed her hair over her face, although this did not significantly impact her stellar archery skills. It goes without saying that she had absolutely enormous breasts and hips.

"I saw Zim today," Dib said, truly able to confide in his lifelong friend.

"Oh? When are you going to give that up?" Ocie said with a simultaneous nonchalance and brutal honesty only Ocie could really achieve.

"I thought you were a paranormal investigator, too!" Dib protested.

"Yes, but I have long seen the pointless repetition in those games you play with Zim and have moved on to more serious endeavors." Ocie was now leaning coolly against a streetlight and chewing casually on a popsicle stick.

"They're not games! They're much more than that!" Dib argued, then blushed at what he had just said and what it foreshadowed. Where had these sudden feelings come from? Dib did not know, but knew only that he must suppress them, as they could never, ever be acted upon, at least not until Chapter 6.

Ocie gave him a sly knowing look, communicating perfectly that she understood all of what Dib had just thought just from his facial expression. That's the kind of profound relationship these two had, able to know always what the other was thinking, although Ocie was better at it.

"I… I have to go inside now," Dib stuttered. Ocie nodded, empathetically yet coolly.


	3. Some more stuff happens

Dib slipped, conflicted and lankily, into his familiar home. Gaz sat, as she usually did, on the dark purple couch, playing her GameSlave 7, because this is the future, remember. As Dib slipped through the kitchen, he reminisced on the time Zim had come into his house to tell him about Tak: The Hideous New Girl.

~ ~ ~ FLASHBACK TIME! ~ ~ ~

It was 8 A.M. Dib had just woken and was looking forward to a Saturday relatively free of third-degree burns when he heard Zim's wretched, loud, high-pitched, really weird now that he thought about it, voice echoing around the corner. His brain not able to formulate a plan before he turned the corner, he turned the corner. And saw Zim at the table with his father!

"But that's just the way it worked out," Professor Membrane was saying.

"Yeah, I know what you mean," Zim said, fake-sipping something out of a mug.

"Zim!" Dib yelled, paralyzed as he had been the first day Zim had stepped into his life and rocked his world six ways to the Sun or however that saying goes.

"Good morning, son!" Professor Membrane said, noticing Dib. "Your little foreign friend is here to see you."

"Dad, that's the alien! The alien!" Dib said, quivering with fear, and… something else? Yes. He saw Zim as more than an enemy. He wanted to tell Zim that-

"Of course he is, son," Professor Membrane said, interrupting another lengthy internal monologue that would have revealed the big secret about how Dib feels about Zim! Oh, I can't wait until you guys find out! "You two have fun," the scientist continued, exiting the scene.

Satisfied that he had filled enough of this chapter with reminiscing, Dib ended the flashback.

~ ~ ~ END FLASHBACK! ~ ~ ~

You have to pad these chapters, see. You don't want to rush right into the schmex, or it's just a porno, and that doesn't mean anything. This is a raw, emotional story that explores the deep romantic themes implanted so subtly and yet so thoroughly into the show by the careful hand of Jhonen Vasquez, who sadly had his art silenced before he could let these themes bear fruit but fortunately I am here to take the story in its intended direction.

With that in mind, Dib spotted a paddle-ball on the table next to that creepy lamp shaped like his dad. He gripped the paddle-ball firmly in his palm, wrapping his fingers tightly around the handle, pressing his thumb over the second joint of his middle finger. He held the paddle up at about chest level and flicked his wrist, wrenching the round pink rubber sphere upwards and out before bringing it back towards the wooden board, effectively "paddling" the ball as the manufacturers intended. Grinning wryly at the simplicity of the game, he flicked his wrist back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and back and forth. I think this chapter's long enough now.


	4. Breaking Point

Dib was strewn lankily across his bed. He was fully clothed, but don't worry, we'll get to the not-fully-clothed part later.

Okay, fine, he had his shoes off, and his toes were really long, or whatever it is you foot fetish people like.

He was listening to the Mysterious Mysteries podcast (get it? It's a reference from the show!) when the sound of crashing glass jolted him to attention. He ripped off his headphones and sat up to see his bedroom window reduced to shards on the floor. And in the middle of those shards sat a round, dark gray metal object, about the size of Dib's normal-sized head. It glistened with blue electronic veins (you know, like the kind in Tron) and was emblazoned with a triangular symbol with a round circle in the center and accented with two angular antennae shapes. Dib contemplated this object and who, possibly, could be behind it when it (the object) sprouted four small legs and a segmented tail and launched itself at Dib! It latched onto his face and drilled into his skin. Remembering his fighting training from Ocie and also his general hunkiness, Dib seized the robotic creature, and, with a manly yell that was now deep and sexy and not like in the actual show, he wrenched the thing from his face. He pounced to the floor, clutching the thing, trying with all his strength to pin it down. Then, he let out a cry of pain as one of the creature's legs stabbed at his bad shoulder from his Traumatic Past Event (remember that?) and fell back slightly. The creature reared up. Dib would have been totally dead and thus unable to fulfill the promise of schmexual schmactivities with Schmim if it weren't for Ocie, who somersaulted through the broken window and kicked the little machine out from under Dib. The machine flew against the bedroom wall and broke in half on impact.

"I sense you're in a lot of pain," Ocie mused, helping Dib up.

"I'll be fine," Dib replied.

"I wonder what that was," Ocie wondered, gliding over to the machine like a panther on ice skates.

Dib was also wondering this when he heard from outside the cold, heartless, still-kinda-weird-now-that-he-was-thinking-about-it, laughter of his arch-nemesis: Schmim. I mean, Zim. His (Dib's) heart froze, although not literally. Of course! How had he not seen before that it was Zim who had thrown that dangerous alien technology into his home! He reached out weakly to try to stop Ocie from inspecting the little robot thing, but her impressive leg muscles had already propelled her to the wreckage so fast that it was futile. She was already bending over the shattered metal, her head in her hands.

"That symbol…" she said, on the verge of tears if it weren't for her great self-control.

Dib could make out the Irken symbol, which is that triangle thing I described earlier, among the Ocie's-foot-shaped dent in the little machine. Suddenly, Dib knew that Ocie had not stayed away from his conflict with Zim because it was a stupid, neverending, neverchanging, constant, alwaysthesame, pointless, withoutapoint fight that was dumb, but because, for some reason that she had not revealed even to her unfathomably close friend (Dib), she could not bear to look at the Irken symbol. It probably had something to do with her Traumatic Past Event. Hint hint.

At that moment Dib knew that he would definitely never, ever love Zim. Never. Zim had hurt the person who had meant the most in the world to him, who always was there for him, who he could look up to, who as far as he knew was the kindest, truest, funniest, most helpful, most efficient at removing squirrels' heads from their bodies, etc. person on Earth.

Dib silently picked up a baseball bat and started walking determinedly out of the room.

"Where are you going?" Ocie cried. She was a total emotional wreck now.

"To Zim's house. I'm gonna hit him with this baseball bat until he bleeds to death," Dib growled.

"No!" Ocie cried. "I know how you feel about him! You'll regret it! Dib! You'll regret it!"

"He hurt you!" Dib whirled around, yelling really loud suddenly because this was intense.

Ocie broke into a sobbing mess, because, she knew, deep down, that Dib was right and that this scene was really intense.

Dib stalked out like a really determined and angry bear or other threatening animal.


	5. The Wettening

Zim marched triumphantly around his living room, a strange room filled with unnatural colors such as hot pink and featuring a large painting of a big-eared green monkey, which was making a facial expression that indicated it was being forced to sit still while some human or possibly Irken painted it. Do Irkens paint? Actually, the painting was probably made with a computer algorithm or something. Zim's entire house had been built in mere seconds after he had first landed on Earth, all that unclear length of time ago. To the right of the painting, or to the left depending on which way you are facing, there was another painting, this one of a small creature which most clearly resembled those Pentapus animals from Avatar; remember those? but is helpfully labeled "Squid" so that we can make the distinction. Next to this painting was the entrance to the kitchen, which contained a toilet which Zim used to ha ha you thought you were done with exposition didn't you THERE IS NO END TO THE EXPOSITION IT IS ETERNAL modifications to the receptor pocket that prevents the snake venom α-neurotoxin from binding. These represent four separate, independent mutations. In the mongoose, this change is effected uniquely, by glycosylation. Researchers are investigating whether similar mechanisms protect the mongoose from hemotoxic snake venoms.

Zim ran his three-fingered gloved hands over the top of his hairless green head and felt the slight kink in his right antennae that you can only see if you look really closely. Zim frowned as he recalled his own Traumatic Past Event, which I don't think I'm going to get to, sorry.

Well, that was fun having Zim's point of view for a while, but I like Dib more so we're going back to him. Dib approached Zim's door, tapping the baseball bat against his palm menacingly. He tapped the door with the tip of the bat, then, as the little green alien answered, Dib cleverly hid the bat behind his back where no one would ever see it.

"Dib-creature!" Zim said, unusually genial. "Won't you come in?"

Dib continued to frown broodingly as he stepped into the house.

"Would you like some waffles?" Zim asked cheerfully. "Follow me into the kitchen and we'll, uh, get them! The waffles."

Dib sensed with his senses that this was obviously a trap of some sort. Even by the hideously character-developed standards of this story, Zim was acting too nice. Well, Dib would trap Zim's trap! Wait, is "trap" innuendo for something? No, that's "snatch".

Dib's very good brain set to work on a plan. He would wait until he was close enough to Zim… and then he would bash his head in with the baseball bat! Yes! It was brilliant!

Dib began to follow Zim into the kitchen. Because his legs were so long and muscular, he caught up to the little Irken before they had reached the kitchen. Dib swept right with his hip, forcing Zim to turn towards the wall. There was no escape now…

He raised the bat over his head, Zim, who was still facing the wall, not yet realizing what had happened. But just before he brought the bat down and enacted vengeance on the being who had dared indirectly make his longtime childhood friend upset, Zim turned his head to him in confusion, and Dib found himself looking deeply into the giant shiny, translucent red eyes, which, Jesus, looked like they went all the way through his skull. They were like big pools of Jell-O, like in that movie _Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs_ , in the part where there were big pools of Jell-O. Zim's eyes were like strawberry Jell-O.

The bat slammed to the floor just in front of Zim. Zim cocked his head quizzically at Dib. Tears blurred Dib's glasses. His throat tightened on words he could not say. _That's my favorite kind of Jell-O._

"This has nothing to do with jelly!" Zim said endearingly.

 _Oh God, did I say the Jell-O thing out loud?_

"You did," Zim answered. "And you said that out loud, too." Such wisecracks were a well-established part of his character.

Dib gathered himself. He was too much of a sobbing wreck with snot coming out of his nose and the like to kill Zim today. Oh well. He could put that off to another day. One thing was for certain. He would never, ever, in a million years, fall in love with Zim, nope, nosirree, never ever, definitely never—

Oh, fuck it. They were at each other in a second, Zim with his arms around Dib's lean but attractive shoulders, and Zim was careful not to aggravate the Traumatic Past Event injury because he was just sensitive that way. And Dib rubbed Zim's dress thing sensuously, and their tongues were totally in each others' mouths, wrapping around each other like slap bracelets around an 8-year-old's wrist and sucking on each other's uvulas and all sorts of other revolting things. After about fifteen minutes, Dib unfortunately had to breathe, so he stopped kissing for a second, and then remembered something.

"My saliva is mostly water, you know. Aren't your mouth and throat burning from all this?" he inquired, because the last thing he wanted was to hurt more people he loved (see, he admitted he loved Zim!)

"Well, water is only harmful to Irkens when it is _not_ part of a long-awaited make-out sesh," Zim contested. See, I think of these things.

Then they kissed again. In that moment all of the questions Dib had been asking himself about morality, status quo, good versus evil, ethics, who he was, what his quest was, what the capital of Assyria was, etc. faded as his mind became dominated by how Zim's teeth were really round, and how the hell did he eat anything that way?

But he did have one question: "Where?"

Zim, with his amazing listening and comprehension skills, understood exactly what Dib meant. "The couch folds out."

…

"You have to pull harder!"

"I'm pulling as hard as I can!"

"Well, it's not gonna come out like that! Let me try!"

"I can do it!"

"Hey! Don't pull that way! You'll break it!"

"I'm sorry!"

"Okay, here, together."

"Got it."

"Good."

Dib wiped the sweat off his brow as he and Zim finished folding the couch out.

(This tasteless joke was brought to you by insomnia.)

Then they got on the bed and sat like two cats sitting, facing each other. They were at each other again, and they kissed and kissed and kissed and kissed, but then they decided to get that weak shit outta here, it was time for the real deal.

Zim pulled his dress-shirt thing off, and Dib did a double take at what he saw. There were like forty bulging, rippling muscles in alien configurations, each one writhing powerfully with every movement the Irken made, like sexy gerbils being subjected to high levels of electricity. Also he had a six pack and hips like a female character in a Butch Hartman cartoon. You may jerk off now.

Dib hesitated, retreating into an internal monologue about if he was sure he wanted to do this, and undoubtedly he and Zim's relationship would change forever if he did do this, although admittedly they had already exchanged excessive quantities of saliva so they were kinda already past the point of no return on that one. But still, Dib sensed that somehow, someway, he could extend this monologue long enough so that the readers who are still jerking off won't miss anything important. Okay, I think we're good now.

So Dib pulled off his own shirt and it was Zim's turn to be all impressed. Dib was composed of long, lean, ropy muscles, not the muscles of a great cougar or bear, but more like a running deer. A female deer. But still sexy. Also, that ass was hella fine.

So then as they pulled the rest of their clothes off and got closer and closer to the whole reason this story was written, Dib's fretful mind again wondered if it was really okay, legal, even, for him, a fourteen-to-eighteen year old, to engage in these activities with a hundred-plus-year old guy who had done horrible things to children such as steal their organs and/or videogames; who had killed people in the past, both intentionally and inadvertently; who—

"By the way, I'm sixteen in 'Irken years'," Zim mentioned.

Oh. Well then it was fine.


	6. The Chapter You've All Been Waiting For

They had sex.


	7. Some Poetry

_Why doth the running bear_

 _Eat deer?_

 _Or rather, the deer are the ones who are running_

 _Sorry about that_

 _But the point is, why do animals eat each other_

 _When it doth bring nothing but harm to the other_

 _I don't know_

 _You don't know_

 _We're all Goofy Goobers yeah_

 _I mean, we don't know._

 _Because of tradition_

 _The bear doth eat the running deer_

 _Because his fathers and grandfathers doth did that_

 _And the deer doth get eaten_

 _Because his fathers and grandfathers doth got eaten_

 _Although not before reproducing_

 _By the way, if the deer and the bear each had fathers, plural_

 _Does that mean they had two dads?_

 _That's pretty neat_

 _But what if_

 _Just for a moment_

 _The bears and the deer didn't eat and get eaten, respectively_

 _And instead they made love with each other?_

 _We'd have deer-bear animals_

 _That would be cool._


	8. Awkward

Dib was walking to Skool the next day. It is the next day because nothing interesting happened after The Chapter You've All Been Waiting For until now, where the story picks up. Or something interesting might have happened, but I wasn't paying attention. I was busy writing poetry.

Anyway, Dib spotted Zim across the playground again, mirroring this fic's opening scene. But this time, instead of shouting at each other, they shot each other the staple indicator of awkwardness: ellipses!

"…" Dib said.

"…" Zim replied.

"…" Dib pondered.

"…" Zim reassured him.

"…" Dib asked again, this time more urgently.

"…" Zim answered sharply.

His heart racing, Dib plunged into Skool and did a lot of Skoolwork and stuff and hardly spoke at all throughout the day. And since this is the future and they are in a new Skool, I'm gonna say Dib and Zim now sit right next to each other! So awkward!

"And now we will pair up for an activity or something," Ms. Ritter said. "Just slide your desks together and stare into each other's eyes while I go get the lesson plan."

Driven by some unknown force inside him, possibly the will of the fanfic writer, Dib found himself sliding his desk next to Zim. Dib whipped his neck around violently to avoid looking right at Zim, who was probably doing the same thing but Dib couldn't tell because he definitely wasn't looking, nope. Dib twiddled his thumbs, and then played with his hair, and then wiggled his hands around in his pockets, and then did that thing where you move your fingers over your lips and go "blblblblblblblblblbl". It was so awkward!

Then Ms. Bitters I mean Ms. Ritter passed out the worksheets. Dib and Zim both looked the other way and reached for their papers, and their hands touched! LOL!

"So…" Zim began.

"…Well," Dib concurred.

"...Time… to… do… Skoolwork…" Zim said.

"…Yes…" Dib said. "Focus… on… the task at… hand…"

~~~ GILLIGAN CUT! ~~~~

They slammed themselves violently against the bathroom wall, already rubbing their gums together and falling all over the place and making those inhaling noises that people in movies make whenever they make out with all their clothes on and wrestling each other with such unbridled passion as to cause mild concussions. Then someone, let's say Melvin, came into the bathroom and they immediately separated and stood backs to the wall and looked up at the ceiling with their heads angled slightly away from each other so that everyone could see that, yeah, they were totally a Thing, and it was No Big Deal.

Now that that was over with, they could move on to the next stage of their relationship.

"See you later, Oonchypoo!" Dib said as they cheerfully exited the bathroom.

"Bye for now, Munchmuffins!" replied Zim.

"Love ya, Oodgieskoodiewoo!"

"Indeed, Moofytoofyloofyrooskwoochoo!" You would not believe how hard it was to find words like these that didn't mean something absolutely repulsive on Urban Dictionary.

Dib marched gleefully home. Presumably Zim did the same thing, but this is really Dib's story so yeah. All he could think about was how he had never been happier in his life, and how he was just going to be so happy now, forever and ever.

Ocie was leaning nonchalantly against the light post as Dib approached his house. Wow, he got to his house fast. I think it was too fast, actually. Let's insert another description of Dib's emotional state to create the illusion of the passage of time so it seems like he is taking a reasonable amount of time to get home. Writing!

Dib was just so happy, he couldn't believe it. He was so happy. He was in love. And happy. Because he was in love and had just acknowledged it, finally, after all these years. As a result of this, he was happy. He was overcome with happiness. Happy happy happy happy happy happy happy happy happy happy happy happy happy happy happy happy happy happy happy happy happy happy happy happy happy happy happy.

Ocie was leaning nonchalantly against the light post as Dib approached his house. She was gnawing on an alligator's pancreas or possibly its gallbladder. "Hey," she mused coolly.

With his incredible powers, garnered from knowing Ocie for years and years, of deducing exactly what she was feeling from the slightest subtle cues, Dib instantly sensed the great pain and suffering she must be enduring. As he watched her run her teeth along the reptile's pancreas (Dib had figured out that, yes, it was indeed a pancreas), Dib sensed the unimaginably great inner turmoil in her eyes, in her voice, in the way the alligator flesh fragments hung from her mouth, etc. Dib stopped in his tracks and wobbled like a guy who had just been hit by a gorilla wielding a big heavy bag of rocks or something. He just could not fathom the pain he had undoubtedly put her in from the thing he had done… was it just last night? Had he and Zim really only been together for less than a day? Wow. I am doing a really good job of padding these chapters.

Dib scuttled to his door like a crab avoiding its lifelong childhood crab-friend to whom it (the first crab) had promised to get rid of a third crab who had caused the second crab (the lifelong childhood friend crab) some anguish, but had instead ended up having sexy times and also actual sex with the third, anguish-causing crab, which definitely put a rift between it (the first, lifelong childhood friend-having and sexy times participant crab) and said lifelong childhood friend crab.

"I sense that you are upset," Ocie said smoothly, like butter, if butter could talk and sense upset-ness.

"I don't want to talk about it," Dib said. He wrestled with the door handle, suddenly finding it hard to get in to his house.

"But you do," Ocie purred, because she knew Dib so, so well, much better than he even knew himself.

But Dib shunned her inarguable logic and went into his house. He knew that Ocie would never follow him in there. There were far too many objects and images indoors that brought about Traumatic Flashbacks in her. Once, in a very important event in Dib's life, although not important enough to warrant a detailed flashback, Ocie had come inside to watch TV with him and had doubled over in shock from a Bloaty's commercial. Dib had tried everything to get her to move from her catatonic state, including pouring water on her and slapping her face while screaming "Snap out of it, goddammit!" but nothing had worked, and eventually the Membrane family had to accept that she was just kinda stuck there in their living room, although they discovered after about a week that she could be moved so as not to block the TV. And then, after about two weeks of being in frozen traumatic shock, she was gone, and on the way home from school that day Dib saw her gleefully removing a live alligator's esophagus from its neck using only her toenails, as if the whole thing had never happened.

Dib knew what he had to do. I mean, he loved Zim, but this was his lifelong childhood friend who had always, always been there for him, his entire life, without fail, that we're talking about here.

Still, Dib dreaded what he knew he had to do. His heart ached like a head suffering from chronic migraines. His head swam like an Olympic swimmer swimming really fast but in an emotional, conflicted, lanky way. Dib decided he had had enough emotional ponderings for today, not to mention all the similes this emotional pondering involved, and resolved to put off the Thing He Knew He Had To Do until next chapter.


	9. Fracture

With a feeling of dread in his stomach, Dib approached the Skool the next morning. He glanced about him, afraid to see Zim, as if they had gone back to that simpler time when, at the sight of his enemy, Dib's stomach would turn, not for lust, but for fear that it would be ripped out for use in some evil Zim-scheme.

But now he was afraid to see Zim, not for potential imminent stomach removal, but for the Thing He Knew He Had To Do.

He fretted like this all morning, sweating and shaking and writhing around with lanky fret. "Fret" is a noun, you know? It makes sense because the adjective "fretful" is like "full of fret". I didn't know that.

Anyway, he eventually saw Zim at lunch, and they sat together.

"Hey, Idgybidgybidgyodieskodiewo!" Zim said happily, because why wouldn't he be happy? Dib looked at him sadly, almost envying his current ignorance of the Thing He Knew He Had To Do.

"Hey, Fudgy," Dib replied, looking away. Zim frowned. Something was wrong. But what could it be? He held up his fingers, counting the syllables in the cutesy nickname Dib had just used. One… two… two! Only two syllables! Zim's frown turned to a look of confused distress, or possibly distressed confusion. Dib turned away.

So they sat there like two buoys bobbing in the ocean off of a regulated beach, placed exactly far enough away from each other as local safety ordinances dictated, unable to drift closer to one another yet also unable to leave each other's sight, fixed as they were to the seafloor by chains of certain but wavering ambiguity, as children swam among them, some obliging faithfully to the inelegant boundaries they represented and others swimming independently around and between them, and lifeguards shouted adverbially at the children who dared violate safety standards, which as recently as a generation ago had not existed, placed into law by overbearing adults with false perceptions on the risks involved in situations such as swimming and unsupervised play, which are actually quite safe, but it's really the whole sue-culture that's the problem. For example, countries like Sweden and Finland…

Realizing that this simile was in danger of mutating into an opinion piece, Dib advanced the plot.

"We have to go back," he said vaguely. This scene was very Important, so he knew that it had to take, like, at least two minutes of the reader's time to get through. To accomplish this, he decided, he would speak vaguely so that Zim would have to ask him what the hell he meant at every turn.

"What do you mean?" Zim asked.

"I mean…" Dib looked down. "Um."

"What?"

"Don't make this harder for me than it needs to be!" Dib turned away again, although because he was already turned away he actually ended up turning _back_ to face Zim. He turned away. "You know what I mean."

"I don't."

"Zim!" Dib wailed.

"What?"

"We… have… to… go… back…" Dib choked, tears streaming down his face. "To… to!"

"To?" Zim asked.

"Stop making it so hard!" Dib screamed and slammed his fist to the table to accentuate his internal anguish. "To the status quo! The status quo! The status quo!"

"The status quo?" Zim asked, a look of dreading terror in his eyes.

"The status quo!" Dib clarified.

Now aware himself that this scene was Important, Zim paused to further draw it out. Then, he said.

"…Which status quo?"

"Oh, Zim! Oh God oh God!" Dib screamed. He was pretty much like Viola Davis in _Fences_ by this point, in that scene where she's covered in fluids from various facial orifices and screaming at her husband about baseball or something. It's a pretty good movie if you skip the first thirty minutes.

"Bloop," Zim said so that the back-and-forth dialogue structure of this scene could be maintained.

" _The_ status quo, Zim! The one where…" Dib paused to spit out the glob of snot and tears that had built up in his mouth from the sheer amount of acting he had been doing. "The one where we didn't make out with each other! The one where _we didn't even want to make out with each other._ "

"But," Zim squeaked, the horror of what Dib had just said sending a wave of cold bad sad emotions through him. "But we _always_ wanted to make out with each other. When I removed your lungs, I remember doing so in a very loving and caring manner."

"The gesture was not lost," Dib lamented. "And when I vowed to dissect you in front of crowds of scientists for the advancement of human knowledge, I meant it in a very sicko pervert kinky way."

"What?"

"I had dreams about it."

"Dreams?"

"Sometimes Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was there."

"Can I pretend I never heard that?" Zim asked.

"Sorry."

"But," Zim continued. " _Why_ do we have to return to this horrible 'status quo'?"

Dib looked away again. "Because…" He couldn't tell Zim that the reason they needed to break up was because something about Zim, specifically the symbol which sometimes appeared on his technology, caused great emotional turmoil in Ocie, and Dib wanted to be there for Ocie and not have his be-there-ness compromised by an emotional attachment to Zim. Dib knew he couldn't tell Zim all this because if he did, he, Zim and Ocie might decide to get together and _talk this issue out_ , and, being the rational, practical people they all were, they might well come to a solution where everyone could leave happy. And he couldn't have _that_. This is a _fanfic_ , for God's sake.

"Because I hate you!" Dib said, choosing the best way to solve this problem. "I hate you and I've always hated you, and I hate you! I hate you!" He slapped the little Irken in the chest to emphasize his point.

Zim fell back from the shock at the turn of events and also from being slapped by a guy twice his size.

"Well, if that's how you feel," Zim said, standing up. "I hate you, too! Rraaaaggh!"

"Aaaagh!"

"Curse you!"

"I hate you!"

"Yes!"

"Indeed!"

"Good!"

They stormed off.


	10. Regret

Dib felt the weight of the gun in his hands like a weight that weighed as much as a gun. Grimacing wryly to himself, he activated his arm and shoulder muscles to bring the gun to face level. He balanced the gun delicately in his wrists until it pointed in the desired direction. Dib paused as he sensed a gust of wind approaching, and he threw his head back at a forty-five degree angle to his shoulders so that the wind coasted off his head in just the right way, causing his hair-scythe to wave dramatically against the red-orange sky, and he had these perfect little hair strands that were sizeable enough to look awesome as the wind blew them around over his brooding face but not numerous enough to look unkempt or matted or frizzy. Dib's trenchcoat-cape thing also waved around and looked amazing as he used his lean muscles to keep his lanky self from falling over in the wind. Then, the wind settled back to a slight breeze, and Dib ran his fingers sexily through his hair to adjust it to the optimal tousle given the current wind speed.

Immensely satisfied with his physical appearance, Dib turned his attention back to the gun clenched in his hands. He found his grip shaking slightly, no doubt from the sorrow and conflictedness he felt at the incomparable tragedy of his dashing good looks not being put to use in gratuitous sex scenes.

Stop it, he told himself. He could do this. He needed to do this, to save the Earth, to prove to everyone he wasn't crazy, to have his own show on the History Channel. He located his target and, using the motor centers of his brain to send a signal through a nerve chain which ran, I'm guessing, from his spine to his right arm to his forefinger, he pulled the trigger. A silver arc of laser shot from the gun's muzzle. It was a direct hit, snagging Zim right in the side of his head! Success!

Unfortunately for Dib's career with the History Channel, this was one of those TV-Y7 laser guns which only inflicted minor burns on the victim which would heal in the next scene.

Still, at the sound of the Irken's screams of pain which Dib had conditioned himself over so many years to associate with triumph and, yes, even joy, Dib found his lips twisting into a slight grin. He had to admit, it was kind of nice to be back to the old game, the quick little victories of inflicting pain on Zim, the constant far-off but so-tangible eventuality of initiating the very first alien autopsy, maybe even in the presence of Justice Ginsburg, the rush of adrenaline that accompanied their meetings which accelerated to a full-on high when they—

Zim shot Dib in the butt with a laser. Ow! Fuck this, he'd much rather be getting laid!

But, Dib knew in the pit of his heart, he couldn't. He turned away so his enemy wouldn't see the tears brimming on his eyelids. But, as much as he wanted to, he couldn't hide from himself the undeniable truth that, more than anything in the world, he didn't want his own History Channel show (although that would be nice). No, more than anything, he wanted a piece of dat Irken ass.

But he couldn't have it, oh, he just couldn't! But he waaaaaanted it! But he couldn't have it! But he waaaaaanted it, no, he neeeeeded it! Neeeeeeeeeeeeeeed! Oh, what could he do, what could he possibly do to rectify this situation? Well, there was one thing that Dib's conflicted, brooding mind knew for sure, and that was what he would do next.

Aaaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnngggggssttt.


	11. Obligatory Angst Chapter

Okay, really? I tried to warn you. I titled this "Obligatory Angst Chapter", and this is a ZADR fic, so you know an angst chapter is coming. I even ended the last chapter with, and I quote, "Aaaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnngggggssttt" for God's sake! Why did you click on this? What is wrong with you?

Okay, well, I'm sorry to whoever wanted, for whatever ungodly reason, to actually read an angst chapter (are you not aware it's a chapter full of angst? Is that your problem?), but I don't see why I should put effort into writing something that very few people who are not currently wearing a scarf while indoors will read, so I have included here the statement written by Supreme Court Justice Horace Gray on the case, _Nix v. Hedden_ , decided in 1893, which declared that, legally, tomatoes are vegetables.

 _This was an action brought February 4, 1887, against the collector of the port of New York to recover back duties paid under protest on tomatoes imported by the plaintiff from the West Indies in the spring of 1886, which the collector assessed under 'Schedule G.-Provisions,' of the tariff act of March 3, 1883, (chapter 121,) imposing a duty on 'vegetables in their natural state, or in salt or brine, not specially enumerated or provided for in this act, ten per centum ad valorem;' and which the plaintiffs contended came within the clause in the free list of the same act, 'Fruits, green, ripe, or dried, not specially enumerated or provided for in this act.' 22 Stat. 504, 519._

 _At the trial the plaintiff's counsel, after reading in evidence definitions of the words 'fruit' and 'vegetables' from Webster's Dictionary, Worcester's Dictionary, and the Imperial Dictionary, called two witnesses, who had been for 30 years in the business of selling fruit and vegetables, and asked them, after hearing these definitions, to say whether these words had 'any special meaning in trade or commerce, different from those read.'_

 _One of the witnesses answered as follows: 'Well, it does not classify all things there, but they are correct as far as they go. It does not take all kinds of fruit or vegetables; it takes a portion of them. I think the words 'fruit' and 'vegetable' have the same meaning in trade to-day that they had on March 1, 1883. I understand that the term 'fruit' is applied in trade only to such plants or parts of plants as contain the seeds. There are more vegetables than those in the enumeration given in Webster's Dictionary under the term 'vegetable,' as 'cabbage, cauliflower, turnips, potatoes, peas, beans, and the like,' probably covered by the words 'and the like."_

 _The other witness testified: 'I don't think the term 'fruit' or the term 'vegetables' had, in March, 1883, and prior thereto, any special meaning in trade and commerce in this country different from that which I have read here from the dictionaries.'_

 _The plaintiff's counsel then read in evidence from the same dictionaries the definitions of the word 'tomato.'[149 U.S. 304, 306] The defendant's counsel then read in evidence from Webster's Dictionary the definitions of the words 'pea,' 'egg plant,' 'cucumber,' 'squash,' and 'pepper.'_

 _The plaintiff then read in evidence from Webster's and Worcester's dictionaries the definitions of 'potato,' 'turnip,' 'parsnip,' 'cauliflower,' 'cabbage,' 'carrot,' and 'bean.'_

 _No other evidence was offered by either party. The court, upon the defendant's motion, directed a verdict for him, which was returned, and judgment rendered thereon. 39 Fed. Rep. 109. The plaintiffs duly excepted to the instruction, and sued out this writ of error._

 _Edwin B. Smith, for plaintiffs in error._

 _Asst. Atty. Gen. Maury, for defendant in error._

 _Mr. Justice GRAY, after stating the facts in the foregoing language, delivered the opinion of the court._

 _The single question in this case is whether tomatoes, considered as provisions, are to be classed as 'vegetables' or as 'fruit,' within the meaning of the tariff act of 1883._

 _The only witnesses called at the trial testified that neither 'vegetables' nor 'fruit' had any special meaning in trade or commerce different from that given in the dictionaries, and that they had the same meaning in trade to-day that they had in March, 1883._

 _The passages cited from the dictionaries define the word 'fruit' as the seed of plaints, or that part of plaints which contains the seed, and especially the juicy, pulpy products of certain plants, covering and containing the seed. These definitions have no tendency to show that tomatoes are 'fruit,' as distinguished from 'vegetables,' in common speech, or within the meaning of the tariff act._

 _There being no evidence that the words 'fruit' and 'vegetables' have acquired any special meaning in trade or commerce, they must receive their ordinary meaning. Of that [149 U.S. 304, 307] meaning the court is bound to take judicial notice, as it does in regard to all words in our own tongue; and upon such a question dictionaries are admitted, not as evidence, but only as aids to the memory and understanding of the court. Brown v. Piper, 91 U.S. 37 , 42; Jones v. U. S ., 137 U.S. 202, 216 , 11 S. Sup. Ct. Rep. 80; Nelson v. Cushing, 2 Cush. 519, 532, 533; Page v. Fawcet, 1 Leon. 242; Tayl. Ev. (8th Ed.) 16, 21._

 _Botanically speaking, tomatoes are the fruit of a vine, just as are cucumbers, squashes, beans, and peas. But in the common language of the people, whether sellers or consumers of provisions, all these are vegetables which are grown in kitchen gardens, and which, whether eaten cooked or raw, are, like potatoes, carrots, parsnips, turnips, beets, cauliflower, cabbage, celery, and lettuce, usually served at dinner in, with, or after the soup, fish, or meats which constitute the principal part of the repast, and not, like fruits generally, as dessert._

 _The attempt to class tomatoes as fruit is not unlike a recent attempt to class beans as seeds, of which Mr. Justice Bradley, speaking for this court, said: 'We do not see why they should be classified as seeds, any more than walnuts should be so classified. Both are seeds, in the language of botany or natural history, but not in commerce nor in common parlance. On the other hand in speaking generally of provisions, beans may well be included under the term 'vegetables.' As an article of food on our tables, whether baked or boiled, or forming the basis of soup, they are used as a vegetable, as well when ripe as when green. This is the principal use to which they are put. Beyond the common knowledge which we have on this subject, very little evidence is necessary, or can be produced.'_


	12. Wow, I'm on Chapter 12 already?

_Dib stood in the pristine, beautiful, unspoiled woodland populated by pristine, beautiful trees which were all in spring blossom as beautiful unspoiled sunlight dappled to the pristine, unspoiled forest floor and birds called around all pristine and unspoiled-like._

 _Despite the sickening pleasantness of this totally real and not-at-all metaphorical setting, Dib allowed himself a small moment of jealousy of the birds, who, while sounding all sweet and innocent and being featured incessantly in many child-friendly movies such as_ Snow White _and_ Call Me By Your Name _, are actually, and we all know this, getting ready to bang. But Dib kept this moment of jealousy small because he had already gotten all that out in the angst chapter, and he did not want to populate this fic so heavily with angst that Scholastic would claim it as a book in the_ Animorphs _series._

 _But before Dib could start to lament about the lackluster and disappointing ending that series had, a hooded figure darted into the clearing and disappeared into the lush forboding arboreal darkness. Well,_ of course _he had to follow it. No idiot would put on a flowing hooded cape and run hurriedly through the woods with their arms tucked to their chest if they didn't want a throng of answer-seeking protagonists swarming them within minutes._

 _So Dib plunged into the forest after the figure, and in seconds the forest morphed into a dark, brooding, owl-infested hellhole of a natural area, as if this place was actually, and you may want to sit down here, not real and, yet more shocking, metaphorical. It might even have been a dream, although this hypothesis had little supporting evidence except for the fact that nothing so far in this chapter made any goddamn sense and it was written in italics. Dib squinted as low-hanging branches slapped his face, but he continued after the figure because… well, because._

 _Suddenly, Dib tripped over a beaver and crashed tragically to the cold floor. He cursed. The fog in this forest was getting excessive. This was almost_ Twilight _levels of fog._

 _Dib's face contorted with horror as he realized what he had just done. He tried desperately to pull his psyche out of_ that _area of his brain, but it was too late. A crashing sound came from behind him, and from the bland indistinct fog emerged a huge werewolf with an extremely well-developed set of pecs._

 _"Hey there," the werewolf said. "Are you depressed because you can't be with your current supernatural boyfriend for some bullshit reason?"_

 _"No," Dib said, trying to ward him off._

 _But the werewolf was way too empathic to fall for that. "I can help with that. Here, I can hold you close and warm you up with my body heat. Did you know a dog's body temperature is a hundred-and-one degrees Fahrenheit (or thirty-eight point three degrees Celsius)? Not that I'm a dog," he let out a seductive growl. "Unless you want me to be."_

 _"Go away," Dib said. "I'm trying to follow a plot thread, here."_

 _The werewolf flexed his biceps in anger. Dib looked away to avoid becoming attracted to him and adding more unnecessary fluff to this story._

 _"Fine, then," the werewolf snorted. "I'll just covet your future hideous alien-hybrid child." And with that he loped caninely away._

 _Resolving never again to read anything "ironically", Dib pulled himself up and ran again through the thicket. He ran for what seemed like dozens of seconds through dark, dingy, monotonous woods, and was beginning to wonder whether he would ever find the mysterious figure in this unnavigable terrain when he stumbled into a perfectly round clearing with the hooded figure kneeled in the center, head down, facing away, with beams of sunlight falling dramatically onto the figure's back and illuminating just enough to distinguish this location from the rest of the woods but still keeping most everything in shadowy fog._

 _Sensing Dib's presence, the figure slowly began to turn towards him. This was it; Dib was finally going to know, after all these minutes of searching, who this was. The milliseconds ticked by like hours as the figure slowly reached for their hood, but Dib knew it would all be worth it when their face was finally revealed in the most dramatic way possible—_

 _"Jesus, what took you so long?" Zim's voice came from inside the hood. He pulled the cloak off over his head, bunched it up in his arms and threw it to the floor. "I've been kneeling here dramatically for like seven minutes."_

 _"Sorry. I got… distracted," Dib said. "Anyway BWAAAAAAAAAAHH?!" The hooded figure was Zim the whole time!?_

 _But there was something off about Zim. After using trigonometric principles to make deductions based on the length of his and Zim's shadows and the approximate position of the Sun, Dib determined that Zim was the same height as he (Dib). Dib then realized that he was ten or twelve or however old he was in the show again._

 _There was another rustling in the bushes, and out stepped another Dib! But this one was fourteen or eighteen or however old he is in this story, but the point is that he was totally hot! And he wasn't wearing a shirt omg._

 _"Omg you are so hot omg," Zim said, waving his hands around excitedly._

 _"Hey, thanks," the-Dib-we've-been-following said._

 _"Hey, quiet, you," Sexy Shirtless Dib said. "He was talking to me."_

 _"LIES!" Zim said. "Heh. No, just kidding. I was talking to you, older, sexy Dib."_

 _Then Zim and Sexy Shirtless Dib started making out, and it was soooo hot, but this chapter is getting a little long, so I suggest you go back to one of the previous make-out scenes if you want to get a feel for the moment._

 _"Oh, Zim," Sexy Shirtless Dib said. "It's too bad that other guy keeps getting in the way of our truuuueee loooooove."_

 _"Um, am I in the way?" Not-Sexy Dib said. "Should I leave?"_

 _"No! Pay attention! This is a metaphor and it's teaching you stuff about yourself so you can achieve happiness in real life," Zim said. "Anyway, yes, Sexy Dib, it's too bad, but at least we can meet here and be together!"_

 _"Watching myself make out with an alien is going to help me achieve happiness?" Not-Sexy Dib questioned._

 _"Yes! It's a metaphor!" Sexy Shirtless Dib said. Then, he said to Zim "Here isn't enough! I—"_

 _"Metaphor for what?" Not-Sexy Dib asked._

 _"Okay, do we need to spell it out for you?" Zim expressed. "He's your lust-filled, attractive sexiness drive, and you're the wuss cockblocker drive that wants to keep us apart. We're all parts of your consciousness, and—"_

 _"Wait, so one part of my consciousness likes to watch another part of my consciousness make out with yet a_ third _part of my consciousness?" Dib deduced. "How the hell does_ that _help me achieve happiness?"_

 _"NO!" Sexy Shirtless Dib exhaled. "That's NOT what this is! And you're not supposed to LIKE watching us! You're supposed to get jealous and want to be the one licking Zim's face and such, thus proving that being with Zim is what you truly want."_

 _"I'm alright with watching," Not-Sexy Dib said._

 _"Okay, look," Sexy Shirtless Dib said, exasperated. "I'm hot, and you're not. So that means that I'm the better version of you. So I'm right." He went back to making out with Zim._

 _"Oh my God, you're right!" Not-Sexy Dib said. "I have to fix this!"_

 _"Yol. Gef en o lul thethiez," Sexy Shirtless Dib said._

 _"What?" Not-Sexy Dib said._

 _Sexy Shirtless Dib took his tongue out of Zim's mouth. "Give in to your desires," he clarified._

 _The hot werewolf crashed through the bushes into the clearing, wagging his tail hopefully._

 _"Not_ those _desires, please," Zim requested. The werewolf hung his head and loped off sulkily._

 _"Fine, but could we get Ruth Bader Ginsburg in here?" Sexy Shirtless Dib reciprocated._

 _"Hey, babe," came a legal and justice-y voice from just outside the clearing._

 _"Hey. Good to see you again," Sexy Shirtless Dib nodded to her._

 _"Let's get unconstitutional!"_

 _"…Anyway," Not-Sexy Dib concluded. "I think the message here is that I should get back together with Zim. I think."_

 _"Yeah, you do that," Sexy Shirtless Dib said absentmindedly. And then, just in time to avoid a scene that would pose a risk of bumping this fic to an M rating, Dib woke up._


	13. The Truth About Ocie

So then Dib got back together with Zim and it was very heartwarming and that's all good but now it is time for…

THE DRAMATIC TWIST!

Dib and Zim were sitting on the couch in some ridiculously adorable pose like maybe Dib was sprawled across the couch and Zim had his head on his (Dib's) belly and Dib laid his hand lankily on Zim's collarbone and there were sparkles floating around because they were just so adorable!

Suddenly the door flew open and Ocie was poised in the doorway, which is the empty outline where the door goes.

"Dib!" she cried. "How could you?"

"Ocie!" Dib emoted, leaping up in shock. "I'm so sorry, but I just couldn't go any—

"Ouch," Zim expressed, as Dib's shocked leaping-up had thrown him to the floor on account of their adorable posing.

"Sorry," Dib said. "Ocie! I know this hurts you, but I just couldn't go another day without my bae Zim! It hurt when we were apart! I realize I've needed him ever since I met him, that I've always been in love with him, for the following reasons. First, I have always shown an often unspoken desire to help him in his schemes, especially when they involve avoiding being caught. For example, in 'Dark Harvest—"

"Okay, okay!" Ocie interrupted. "God, this isn't the ACT! I get it!" She placed her hand understandingly on Dib's shoulder and smiled wryly into his gopher-brown eyes. "I was just kidding, silly. Of course I completely understand and support you."

"Oh, of course. I feel silly." Dib said, feeling silly for thinking even for one second that Ocie would not be completely in the know about his feelings at any given time. "I'm sorry, it's just, I just finished having gratuitous get-back-together sex, and I was on edge about the possibility of having to break up with Zim again just as we've mastered adorable sparkle-posing."

"I know," Ocie related.

"You knew about the gratuitous get-back-together sex?"

"Yes."

"How?"

"Oh, not in a creepy way or anything. I'm just very understanding."

Dib nodded. How could he have forgotten how very understanding Ocie was? She was very understanding.

"Hey, where's GIR?" Zim said. "I just realized, I don't think I've seen him in, like, at least three days."

"TACOOOOOSS!" GIR said, prancing around the room. "EEEEHHEHEHEEHEEEEE! PIGGIIIEEES! Etc."

"Well, now that that's resolved," Ocie summarized. "How about I make us some tea?" She started for the kitchen.

"How do you know where I keep my tea?" Zim questioned.

"I'm very understanding," Ocie reminded him.

"She is," Dib affirmed. He and Zim started to lay back into another adorable pose, like I'm thinking this time they were both leaning coolly against the couch's back cushions but like Zim was leaning a little onto Dib's side so his little head was tucked under Dib's arm but it was super romantic and not sweaty and disgusting because Dib had excellent hygiene and deodorized twice a day. They were just starting to emit sparkles when the sound of a crashing tea kettle was heard from the kitchen. Instantly, Dib set his ropey muscles into action, propelling him like a determined piece of toast from an overactive toaster into the kitchen. There he saw Ocie huddled over in her familiar Traumatic Flashback state, hunched over with her hands pressed over her wispy soft pink hair.

"Oh, Ocie," Dib said, as he was so, so sad for his friend. "What is it?"

"I can tell you." To Dib's complete and utter shock, it was not Ocie who answered the question, but someone who was, in fact, a different person from Ocie, someone who had been subtly foreshadowed earlier but who you would not, ever, in a million years, guess was related to Ocie's Traumatic Past Event provided your mouth was gagged and you were repeatedly hit in the back of the head with a hammer. This dramatic reveal of a person was: Zim!

Yes. Zim. I have trouble believing it, too, but he was actually important to the story all along!

Zim slid across the kitchen like a geek on a Segway only with more panache. He pointed a black gloved finger at the corner of the kitchen, where one of those robot things from earlier sat, with the Irken symbol in full view. "Your friend Ocie has horrible memories associated with that symbol because," and here he paused because this, this is the real kicker: "I created Ocie in my lab two years ago!"

Whaaaaat? I know, right? You might wanna, you might wanna clean your floor there, cause there's drool on it. On the floor. From your jaw. Cause your jaw dropped to the floor right there, so I bet you wanna clean the drool off the floor, from the jaw. On the floor.

" _What_?" Ocie said, now herself crying and snotting like Viola Davis in _Fences_ , only more understanding.

"You see," Zim exposited. "I was so hopelessly driven in my quest to conquer Earth, but this was getting hard as it became more and more undeniable that I wanted to smash Dib." Dib nodded sympathetically. "So I decided I needed closure on the whole Dib thing, and it was clear that the easiest way to do that was to merge DNA from the most objectively perfect women on Earth, create elaborate, vivid memories carefully selected to further ensure absolute flawlessness, use those resources to create an absolutely irresistible fourteen-to-eighteen-year-old being, kidnap Dib and his family on an otherwise unnoteworthy night, insert false memories of wonderful times with this person into their brains, and finally put everything in place and just try not to get distracted by Dib's hot ass until he inevitably falls in love with Ocie and then hopefully I can move on to taking over the Earth. I got the idea from an episode of _Rick and Morty_."

"The one with the memory parasites?" Dib inquired.

"Yes."

"That's a good episode."

"Yes, it's one of my favorites."

"I'm a _memory parasite_?" Ocie intoned.

"No, no," Zim negated. "You're more of a sex parasite I was hoping would distract Dib so that he would stop distracting me from taking over the world."

"But it didn't work," Dib reflected. "Because I am a gay xenosexual except for where Justice Ginsburg is concerned. And here we are."

"Yes," Zim agreed. "It all worked out well in the end, all things considered."

" _Excuse_ me?" Ocie growled. "It all worked out well? You're telling me my entire life is a lie and the purpose of my entire existence is just to get into Dib's pants?"

"Well, it _was_ ," Zim clarified. "But don't try that now. He's mine, now."

Ocie looked back to the tech with the Irken symbol on it. "And the Traumatic Past Event… my family…"

"Never happened. Your family never existed," Zim explained.

Suddenly, Ocie's eyes glowed red with rage, although not literally like GIR's eyes do sometimes, but more like when someone is mad and you just get that general red-eye vibe from them. She threw herself at Zim and pinned the little alien to the floor. Zim let out little terrified shrieks as Ocie started strangling him!

Dib moved to protect his boyfriend but stopped as he realized two things: 1) despite how hunky he was, he could never hope to accomplish anything in a physical altercation with Ocie due to her amazing fighting skills; and 2) Ocie was not succeeding in strangling Zim because it was unclear as to whether or not he had a neck.

But that was okay because Ocie soon came to her very understanding senses. She sat back on her knees and sobbed. Dib helpfully put his hand on her shoulder.

"Thanks, Dib," she said. "You're such a good friend. I'm sorry I tried to murder your boyfriend."

"That's okay, Ocie, I understand," Dib said.

"It's just…" she sobbed some more. "That traumatic memory… it's so traumatic… why would you burden me with that?"

"Well," Zim explained. "You actually aren't the first synthetic person artificially inserted into an existing cast of characters. This is actually a common occurrence among humans. Many cases of this are documented on the research database, ' '. After investigating a number of these, I found several traits that make an artificial person absolutely flawless. For reasons yet to be explored by the scientists at , the inclusion of a ridiculously and unrealistically traumatic past event in their memory somehow makes the subject _even more perfect._ "

Ocie started sobbing again. "I can't believe it! Oh! It was so horrible! And terrible!"

Dib and Zim waited patiently.

"It was the worst thing ever! I don't think anything more traumatic has ever happened to anybody, ever! The level of trauma was so bad! It was bad!"

They waited some more.

"Waaaaaahhhh!"

Waiting.

"Well, I guess I should tell you about it, then," Ocie said finally.

"Oh, no, that's fine," Dib said quickly, putting his hand on her shoulder again. "We totally don't need to know. We'll just move on and never mention it again, okay?"

"No," Ocie said. "We've danced around this too long. It has to be revealed. I have to be milked for all the dramatic tension I'm worth, goddammit."

"Okay," Dib relented. "But wait until the next chapter, okay?"

"Okay."


End file.
